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World Futures
The Journal of New Paradigm Research
ISSN: 0260-4027 (Print) 1556-1844 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gwof20
Attracting Our Future into Being–the Syntony
Quest
Anneloes Smitsman, Alexander Laszlo & Kurt Barnes
To cite this article: Anneloes Smitsman, Alexander Laszlo & Kurt Barnes (2018): Attracting Our
Future into Being–the Syntony Quest, World Futures, DOI: 10.1080/02604027.2018.1499850
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02604027.2018.1499850
Published online: 27 Sep 2018.
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ATTRACTING OUR FUTURE INTO BEING–THE
SYNTONY QUEST
ANNELOES SMITSMAN
EARTHwise Centre, Quatre Bornes, Mauritius
ALEXANDER LASZLO
The Laszlo Institute for New Paradigm Research (L-INPR), Buenos Aires, Argentina
KURT BARNES
EARTHwise Centre, Quatre Bornes, Mauritius
This article explores a new perception of causality and time. It is proposed
that our present is not the result of our past; instead it emerges from our
futures. The intention to bring into being a world and future where all of us
can thrive has been shared by numerous people. Yet despite these intentions,
we have not yet been able to effectuate the deeper transformational change
required for bringing this forth at the pace and scale now required. This art-
icle offers the quintessence of this quest, to liberate our focus from our
entrapment within the systems we defined.
KEYWORDS: Alchemy; from causality to mutuality; syntony; system wholeness;
transformational change.
OUR INTENTION AND INVITATION
This article is part of a Ph.D. research project by Anneloes Smitsman, titled
Into the Heart of Systems Change.
1
This work evolved in response to a grow-
ing urgency about the damage we are causing to the present and future condi-
tions for manifesting our collective thrivability (Russell, 2013; Wahl, 2016).
Increasingly, more of our eco-systems are now collapsing because we failed to
act on these earlier warnings (IPCC, 2013). Although there is a growing aware-
ness of the damage that we are causing to the fabric of Life through our planet-
ary mismanagement, we have not yet achieved the transformational change
necessary to stop what we set into motion thousands of years ago (WWF,
2012). We have attempted through new agreements, such as the Sustainable
Address correspondence to Anneloes Smitsman, EARTHwise Centre, 55 Avenue
Duperr
e, 72351, Quatre Bornes, Mauritius (Indian Ocean). E-mail: anneloes@
earthwisecentre.org
1
World Futures,0:1–22, 2018
Copyright #Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0260-4027 print / 1556-1844 online
DOI: 10.1080/02604027.2018.1499850
Development Goals (SDGs), to change the destructive course of our current
trajectories. Yet to transform these trajectories it is not sufficient merely to
attempt different actions now; it also requires a journey into our future poten-
tialities for our full species awakening, and to bring those into action here and
now. Most of our perceived new systems designs are still taking place within
the same horizontality of thinking that has contributed to our sustainability cri-
sis in the first place. How then do we access and actualize these future poten-
tialities to help effectuate the kind of transformational change that can secure
our collective thrivability all through time and space? Is there a more effective
way that we can use the power of our intentions, in a way that we have not yet
applied? In his book The Road of Time: Theory of Double Causality, Philippe
Guillemant (2014) mentioned:
The mechanism by which our intentions are active and therefore susceptible of
generating traces of the future is as follows:
When our intentions are sustained by faith or confidence, they
instantly increase the probabilities of realizing a future already poten-
tiated on our Tree of Life;
If a causal route does not exist, or no longer exists, then the potential
of non causal solutions for the realization of this future will see their
probability increased, according to a route that descends from the
future to the present;
This will favor the emergence in the present of favorable chances,
and as a consequence, we must expect to observe around us opportu-
nities for routes leading to this realization, providing we are open
to them;
Our intentions are active not only in our brains, but also in a future
space-time outside our brains, one that houses all our potential
futures: because our intentions instantly modify the probabilities in
this future. (pp. 1105–1111)
If our intentions indeed modify the probabilities in a future space-time that
houses all our potential futures, then the first shift toward collective thrivability
should be to enhance the quality of our intentions. During our conversations
we explored whether the future can cause the present. As alchemists of trans-
formational change one of our common practices is to guide people through
deep envisioning and hypnosis into the future potentialities of their thrivability.
To replace and transform the patterns of dysfunction, disease, and fragmenta-
tion with new patterns generated by future potentialities that they had not yet
accessed fully. Their activated access to these new future potentialities then
optimize, harmonize, and synergize their current potentialities to align with
higher more integrated levels of consciousness. Guillemant (2014) shared that
“our intentions are not only active in our brain, but also in a future space-time
outside our-brain”(p. 1111). This implies that we are not merely objects that
exist within space-time, as is often assumed. We could say that we are in fact
2 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.
space-time manifested as localities. Otherwise, changes within our intentions
could not effectuate changes in future space-times outside of our mind.
This also implies that our own actualization, as expression of a larger
unified field of consciousness invisible to most, directly impacts on the time-
realities that we co-manifest. The future is thus not about a time that does not
yet exist (Merleau-Ponty, 1962). Futures already exist as potentialities, yet
most people are not conscious of these potentialities in their present experien-
ces of their space-time realities. For most people their minds are too identified
with the local dimensions of the universal and not the universal dimensions
within the local (Smitsman, 2017c).
The alchemical transformational process dissolves the mind-made identifi-
cation patterns that keep us locked in localized dimensions. When our percep-
tion becomes rigid and stagnant (i.e., locked in localized dimensions), our
space-time parameter settings become inflexible. This inflexibility means that
we can no longer attune, harmonize, and synergize our individualized con-
sciousness to the larger collective field of consciousness of which we are part.
Without this attunement, alignment, harmonization, and synchronization our
individualized consciousness will over time start to generate its own patterns
and feedback loop systems, similar to the growth pattern of a cancer or a virus.
These feedback loop systems lack the necessary information in-put from the
larger fields of Life, which are necessary to remain in touch with Life as a
whole. Information that is not sourced, corrected, balanced, and attuned by
Life’s wholeness becomes (eventually) dysfunctional and starts to operate as a
self-referential or endogamic reality that could be compared to a computer
simulation. Many such information patterns become destructive over time, and
one might even consider whether this destructiveness is not an in-built protec-
tion mechanisms to ensure the death of de-evolutionary inbred expressions of
atavistic consciousness.
One could say that inflexibility of the system to attune, align, harmonize,
and synchronize is a death to the system that sets in motion a process of invo-
lution whereby the elemental life forces that initially fostered our evolution
now inverse and reverse. This involution serves the evolution of consciousness
over the longer term, by casting a death within the shorter term. Life it seems,
protects its continuous development by triggering death there within the system
where information systems become decoupled from the whole.
The alchemist and the shaman know how to work with death purposefully
in order to enhance Life and the system’s health. Initiations always guide peo-
ple into the experience of a death of former identities of self that limit the fur-
ther evolutionary capacity of the being (Smitsman, 2017c). Liberation takes
place within the process of death. That which in one direction, context, and
dosage can serve as a medicine, can, within another direction, context, and
dosage, become a toxin or poison. If we are to work with our current evolu-
tionary and involutionary processes to bring forth a thrivable world and future,
then we need communication systems, tools, and processes for working with
these forces in a life-enhancing direction. The purpose and intention of this
3ATTRACTING OUR FUTURE INTO BEING THE SYNTONY QUEST
article is to contribute to this emerging field that holds the bridge between the
latest scientific insights and the ancient wisdoms.
Accordingly, this article also aims to contribute to the field of sustainability
sciences and sustainability design, with new insights for how to access, actual-
ize, and embody our evolutionary potentials for our collective thrivability. As
mentioned by Alexander Laszlo (2004), Evolutionary Systems Design and
transformative praxis of societal change is essential for a sustainable and evo-
lutionary future (p. 36). This requires as well a better understanding of the
kind of alchemy of transformational change that brings forth sustainability and
thrivability (Russell, 2013).
As Daniel Wahl (2016) indicated, sustainability is a dynamic evolutionary
process that is participatory and requires ongoing conversations and co-learn-
ing practices to participate in this constantly transforming life-sustaining pro-
cess (p. 40). Furthermore, our current sustainability crisis requires a
fundamental shift in the way we live and uphold our values and the standards
we set for ourselves and others. The right identification of the syntony links
between practical, political, and personal transformation potentials will become
increasingly more important for achieving ethical, equitable, and thrivable out-
comes for sustainability (O’Brien & Sygna, 2013, p. 21). Resolving out sus-
tainability crisis thus requires a conscious participation in our own
evolutionary journey in a way we have never done before (University of
Oslo, 2013).
Our current world is full of pain because it denies so pervasively the deeper
nature of our consciousness as Life (Laszlo, 2017). We could even go so far as
to say that our world as we know it from the unified field of consciousness has
hardly yet come into being. As if we have not yet begun and are merely living
a shadow version of our true potentialities right now (Smitsman, 2017a). These
reflections are not new; they have been echoed and are the echoes of countless
sages, wizards, and seers from the dawn of our humanity (Smitsman, 2017b).
The purpose of the alchemical process is to liberate our consciousness by
actualizing the universal dimensions within the locality of itself. This is also
the symbolic re-birth, the phoenix that rises from its ashes, the resurrection
from the death that follows involution. Alchemy facilitates our birth (evolu-
tion) into higher states of consciousness by attuning, aligning, harmonizing,
and synchronizing our consciousness to the universal dimensions. If necessary
this can also take place via a process of death, decay, dissolution, and transmu-
tation, when involutionary processes of consciousness have been set in place.
In physical alchemy nothing is wasted; the denser qualities such as lead are
transmuted to become the more refined qualities such as gold. And so it is also
in spiritual alchemy: when we actualize the universal qualities within the local,
we become as Spirit-Matter—the quintessence of alchemy.
Our intention for writing this article is to inspire and remind the reader how
to become a state-attractor for the future potentialities that are currently
untapped within our local human dimensions. The direction of the transform-
ational change that this article is focused on concerns our collective
4 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.
thrivability. This requires specific steps and actions in a here and now that can
receive and actualize these future potentialities. Through this article we share
some of these steps and actions as an initiatory framework.
We invite you as the reader to join us on this quest, to explore how we can
become an attractor to bring into being from our future the potentials necessary
for our full species awakening. Our own consciousness is the main ingredient
for this alchemical process. Within us the potentialities for both evolution and
involution exist, in the same way that the potentialities for both manifestation
and dissolution exist. We have called our quest the syntony quest, which is
explained by Alexander Laszlo (2018) as follows:
[…] syntony is a creative aligning and tuning with the evolutionary processes
of which we are a part. It involves listening to the rhythms of change and
learning how to play our own melody in harmony with the larger piece—as in
piece of music, piece of the whole, and peace. It is finding and creating
meaning and evolutionary opportunity, both individually and collectively. This
syntony quest, then, is really just a vehicle for the cultural differentiation and
purposeful transcendence of social systems through convergent evolutionary
pathways. It is the path of syntony and spark, of flowing balance with cosmic
emergence. (p. 70)
In essence, the concept of syntony is best captured in the work of Erich
Jantsch. He writes of syntony as "inquiry at the evolutionary level par excel-
lence" (1975, p. 103). According to Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (1979),
syntony can be defined as "in radio, resonance," while “to syntonize”is "to
tune or harmonize with each other." As such, syntony can be understood as a
creative aligning and tuning with the evolutionary processes of which we are a
part. It involves listening to the rhythms of change and learning how to play
our own melody in harmony with the larger whole. It is finding and creating
meaning and evolutionary opportunity, both individually and collectively
(Laszlo, 2015). In other words, we can talk of intrapersonal syntony (physical,
psychological, and spiritual meta-stability and balance), interpersonal syntony
(community and societal peace and dynamic harmony), environmental syntony
(ecosystemic consonance and sustainability), and future-oriented syntony (con-
sistency and coherence in past, present, and future actions and mindfulness for
future generations). As Jantsch (1975) put it, "we shall have to learn now to
design systems of syntony" (p. 270).
A deeper understanding of syntony shows it to be a powerful organizing
force in societal evolution (Laszlo, 2001). Syntony involves diachronic har-
mony and evolutionary consonance at various levels of an interconnected com-
plex dynamic system, providing coherence and consistency to change efforts.
It is not always a conscious process, but the evolutionary challenge for human-
ity is to raise it to consciousness so that our actions are intentionally aligned
with evolutionary purpose. The simplest form of such conscious intention to
create evolutionary consonance would be contemplation of the consequences
of our actions and the implications of our intentions, and subsequent alignment
of them in ways that are considerate of their likely salient impacts. Of course,
5ATTRACTING OUR FUTURE INTO BEING THE SYNTONY QUEST
we cannot foresee how any thought, value, or act will eventually play out with
100% certainty, but through mindful and reflective attention, we can learn to
appreciate the patterns of stability and instability to which they are likely to
contribute. And through an engaged syntony quest, it is possible to consciously
evolve human consciousness so that it is more consonant, coherent, and con-
nected with the underlying warp and weft of cosmic emergence.
THE SYNTONY QUEST
The Dao generates the One, the One generates the Two, the Two generate the
Three, the Three generate the ten thousand things. (Pregadio, 2014, p. 53)
One of humanity’s most favorable questions is: why and what caused this?
Our own foray into the nature of reality that we experience from within, which
is filtered by our mental fabrics, has given rise to a phenomenal amount of the-
ories, innovations, and technologies. This has also been the driving force for
how we became actively involved in the exploitation of our evolutionary
potentials as a species. About 2,400 years ago Aristotle wrote about the “four
causes”for explaining change in the world (Todd, 1976). Before Aristotle
there were many others. Some may say that this deeper searching for causality
and understanding why things happen and how things change is an existential
quest. Others may argue that knowing why something is happening can give us
insights into the laws of nature and thus increase our abilities to work with
these laws for our benefit. The question of why also entered into our hearts and
minds, and became the source of a series of conversations between us that
resulted in this article, where we delved into the why and how of transform-
ational change for a deeper evolutionary purpose.
Transformational change is a concept that is often mentioned these days.
There is increasingly more agreement among people that our current societal
systems do not contribute to our thrivability and are destroying our planetary
health systems (IPCC, 2013; Korten, 2015; Wahl, 2016; WWF, 2012).
Somehow many of our current human-made systems are not compatible and
aligned with our planetary wisdom. Many of these systems have been designed
to extract from nature, not to co-evolve synergistically with our fellow beings
within the Web of Life (Smitsman, 2017b). Our current ecological crisis is in
many ways the result of our misalignment and disconnection from the wisdom
that is Life (Smitsman, 2017c, Smitsman & Chung, 2018). This implies that
many of the answers we seek for resolving our global ecological crisis start by
listening and attuning to this wisdom that is inherent in all our natural systems
(Russell, 2013).
In contrast to the mechanistic view of our Universe that reduced reality to
random parts, this article is based on the premise that our Universe is the mani-
fest expression of an embedding and in-forming Cosmos that is whole, con-
scious, and intelligent. Accordingly, our view of Life is one that deeply
acknowledges the interdependent co-arising nature of Life—also called the
6 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.
Web of Life. This implies that we are not only deeply interconnected, we are
each holons of the wholeness of the All that is (Koestler, 1967, p. 48). This
worldview of the Universe as whole, conscious, and intelligent has also been
called the New Paradigm. It is considered a new paradigm since it is founded
on a different understanding and perception of what is reality than what has
dominated our current Western societal systems for the last centuries. As
explained here by Ervin Laszlo and Alexander Laszlo (2016):
In the second decade of the twenty-first century we can describe the basic
tenets of the new paradigm. Particles are not corpuscular entities, and they do
not exist independently against a passive background. The fundamental reality
is not matter but energy, and the laws of nature are not rules of mechanistic
interaction but “instructions”or “algorithms”coding patterns of energy. (p. 5)
This newer scientific understanding of reality as unitary aligns with what
the ancient wisdoms have shared for thousands of years. This unitary percep-
tion of reality is expressed well in the daodejing. The earlier quote from the
daodejing also reveals how the nature of Life is transformational change
(Pregadio, 2014). That which is nameless and beyond space-time generates the
One, which generates the Two becoming the Three, generating the many of ten
thousand things we now are. Yet sadly, many of these ten thousand things
have forgotten the way back to the Dao, the Source of being. The way back
home from multiplicity to realization of our underlying unity is the process
of alchemy.
Transformational change as a concept does not mention whether the direction
of the change is beneficial for Life as a whole. Alchemy, however, does have an
implicit intentionality, namely to transform for greater bonding from unity—a
marriage between spirit and matter, generating Spirit-Matter. Our quest in this
inquiry shares the alchemical intention, namely to use our own consciousness as
the resource through which a transformation of our time can emerge from the
future to the now, to bring forth more of our underlying unity in the contempor-
ary/concurrent time-space of our collective consciousness. We use ourselves as
the bonding mechanism to marry the Spirit of our actualizable future to the
Matter of our current space-time. This is the deep work of transformational
change that is most needed now (Gidley, 2007). Anything else is playing with
parameter settings of limited systems that are designed to collapse.
ALCHEMICAL RELATIONSHIPS
It is only when we transcend our differences, through collaboration,
communication, empathy, and trust—when we are ready to co-create—that we
can begin to design new types of relationships, new ways of being and
becoming, and new ways of living. To seek the transcendence of our
differences and to promote co-creation is a path toward higher complexity and
wholeness. It is a syntony quest, that is, a creative aligning and tuning with the
evolutionary processes of which we are a part, and as such, a contribution to
the evolution of consciousness and the creation of new possibilities for the
7ATTRACTING OUR FUTURE INTO BEING THE SYNTONY QUEST
future. This is lifelong learning. In the face of the planetary challenges of our
time, this is our extraordinary common quest. (A. Laszlo, 2001, p. 312)
Although transformational change at the biological level takes place within us
all the time, many are not conscious of how to work with this process to also
transform parameter settings of their consciousness. For example, every act of
eating is an act of transformation as we digest and transform our food into
energy and information. We receive the energy from this alchemical process
naturally without thinking of it to keep our body going. Yet do we also receive
at the more subtle level the realization of the information and knowledge that
is within our food (Steiner, 1923)?
As a first step toward being the systems we wish to see in the world, one of
our greatest challenges as a species is to change the way we behave and act to
live within the carrying capacity of our planet. This is only a first step since it
leads to much needed survival patterns affirmed by processes of sustainability,
but it does not yet engender the true potential of humans to express love, to
create abundance, to celebrate life, and to embody the sacred in patterns
affirmed by processes of thrivability—a step based on but beyond sustainabil-
ity (Laszlo, 2018). This requires an entirely different way of thinking and per-
ceiving from what has become common. It also requires that as agents for
transformational change we need to play more consciously and effectively with
the processes for which we aim to facilitate transformation (Russell, 2013).
This requires that we acknowledge and explore where, on the one hand, we are
part of the current structure of the system, and yet, on the other, we are posi-
tioned in the potentiality of the system of that which has not yet been realized.
One could call this potentiality of the system a future state of the system. To
effect change, and even by merely working with the intention for such, one
already takes a slightly different position regarding the currently manifested
state of the system. Yet, one cannot say one is not part of the current state of
the system, since the question for change would not arise if one did not experi-
ence the current state of the system.
Holding this creative tension between that which has manifested from
future-past potentialities, and that which is not yet visible and emerging from
future-present potentialities, is one of the greatest practices of transformational
change practitioners. This also includes the awareness that we do not exist
within time: we manifest it. We are literally the bridge between Spirit—as
future potentialities not yet materialized and matter—as future potentialities
materialized. The state of consciousness of the one who works to effectuate
transformational change is thus incredibly important and part of the transform-
ation that is brought forth. Thus what becomes potentiated and actualized from
within will influence what becomes visible and manifest from our futures into
the present.
Working with systems change and transformation is working with alchemy.
In essence, transformation is alchemy! In alchemy the denser materials and
mental states are transmuted through a process of Solve et Coagule.Solve or
solutio refers to the breaking down of elements and structures between
8 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.
elements, and Coagule refers to their coming together into synthesis and unifi-
cation. Accordingly the element lead becomes transmuted via a series of steps
into gold, which is symbolic for the transmutation of our denser states of con-
sciousness into a more enlightened state, represented by gold. This conscious
working of our evolutionary process, by working with the raw source materials
of the collective unconscious and transmuting them into more integral con-
scious states, is also what is at the heart of systems change and transformation.
The famous psychologist and alchemist Carl Jung said about the collective
unconscious, as quoted in Shelburne’s (1988) book:
I have chosen the term “collective”because this part of the unconscious is not
individual but universal; in contrast to the personal psyche, it has contents and
modes of behavior that are more of less the same everywhere and in all
individuals. (p. 29).
The same principle applies to systemic transformation processes. There is
always the unconscious layer of the system, which in the system’s literature
has also been referred to as the system archetypes, the mental models, and the
structure of the system (Meadows, 2011; Senge, 2006). This unconscious and
more structural layer of the system gives rise to patterns of behaviors that
become visible via the behavior and interaction patterns of the elements of the
system. When working with systemic change and transformation, the start pos-
ition is often one whereby an event or outcome reveals how somehow behav-
iors are generated by and from within the system that are not desirable. The
question of change arises when we want different kinds of outputs and patterns
of behaviors and events, compared to what we see is happening. There are
many layers and factors that give rise to a pattern of behavior, and our percep-
tion of that behavior also influences how we in turn respond to it. By seeing,
observing, and then labeling, one becomes a conscious, purposeful, and inten-
tional part of the system in which this behavior takes place.
Although in some of the reductionist schools of psychology it was previ-
ously believed that behavior could change by applying our will to this change
(i.e., making the volitional decision to act differently), we now understand that
this view is too simplistic. Only when we work with the deeper structural lev-
els of the system, individually and collectively, does new behavior emerge
from within the changed parameter settings of the system. Anything else is
merely tending to the event levels of the system and facilitates at best a tem-
porary surface change. That is why simply giving people verbal instructions
about values and desired behaviors and outcomes is not sufficient for produc-
ing these outcomes. If it were that easy, this research would not have been
needed and our world would not be in the kind of crisis it is in today.
Meadows (2002) expressed this elegantly in the following way:
The idea of making a complex system do just what you want it to do can be
achieved only temporarily, at best. We can never fully understand our world,
not in the way our reductionistic science has led us to expect. Our science
itself, from quantum theory to the mathematics of chaos, leads us into
irreducible uncertainty. For any objective other than the most trivial, we can’t
9ATTRACTING OUR FUTURE INTO BEING THE SYNTONY QUEST
optimize; we don’t even know what to optimize. We can’t keep track of
everything. We can’t find a proper, sustainable relationship to nature, each
other, or the institutions we create, if we try to do it from the role of
omniscient conqueror. For those who stake their identity on the role of
omniscient conqueror, the uncertainty exposed by systems thinking is hard to
take. If you can’t understand, predict, and control, what is there to do?
(pp. 1–2).
When we work with transformational change, there is always an interchange
and transfer from unconscious to conscious. It is in the unconscious that the
archetypes are said to be present (Jung, 1969). In Systems Thinking we call
this the structure of the system that produces the patterns and behaviors
(Meadows, 2011; Senge, 2006); the invisible layer in the iceberg model that is
below the surface. This structural level of the system has also been referred to
as the mental models. When we facilitate a systemic transformation process,
we are always in contact with the collective unconscious, even if we are not
aware of this. The term collective unconscious is here referred to as described
by Carl Jung (1969):
A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious is undoubtedly personal. I
call it the personal unconscious. But this personal unconscious rests upon a
deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a
personal acquisition but is inborn. This deeper layer I call the collective
unconscious. I have chosen the term “collective”because this part of the
unconscious is not individual but universal; in contrast to the personal psyche, it
has contents and modes of behaviour that are more or less the same everywhere
and in all individuals. It is, in other words, identical in all men and thus
constitutes a common psychic substrate of a suprapersonal nature which is
present in every one of us. [ …] The contents of the personal unconscious are
chiefly the feeling-toned complexes, as they are called; they constitute the
personal and private side of psychic life. The contents of the collective
unconscious, on the other hand, are known as archetypes. [ …] The archetype is
essentially an unconscious content that is altered by becoming conscious and by
being perceived, and it takes its colour from the individual consciousness in
which it happens to appear. (pp. 3–5).
THE RELATIONSHIP OF STRUCTURE
To formulate an alchemical theory of transformational change, we first need to
enquire more deeply to what we attribute causality and whether causality is a
mental construct that we project onto life. In the field of System Dynamics,
causality is attributed to the structural levels of the system. These structures
are seen as dynamic and arise from the way the elements in the system are
interconnected and the nature of the feedback loop systems that drive the flows
and processes in the system (Meadows, 2011). In most of the different reli-
gions and faiths, causality is attributed to a larger Being, Deity, or Unity that is
seen to be the cause for all that has evolved from it. Jung, who was also an
10 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.
alchemist, attributed causality at the level of the archetypes in the collective
unconscious, which he regarded as psychic structures. These archetypes were
seen to drive how this larger Being makes itself expressed through and as us.
In both cases, irrespective of whether this is based on modern scientific under-
standings or ancient philosophies, causality is defined as the structural dimen-
sions of our phenomenal worlds. The question was, to what do we attribute
causality? In order to progress in our exploration, let us assume for now caus-
ality can be attributed to a large extent to the structural dimensions, which can
be made more visible by looking at how energy and information flow and are
distributed in the system. This brings us then to another question, namely what
do we mean by structure (Emery & Trist, 1965)?
Structure is often associated with something tangible and solid, that on
which other things are built. Structure is also associated with the inner design
of something, the architecture. In some mystical traditions, God was seen as
the prime architect, and God as architect and architecture was thus seen as pre-
sent in everything and everyone. Accordingly, to study the structure, as in the
architecture of life and the universe, was considered to be the primary path for
coming closer to God. However, what if structure is not a thing or set of
things, but rather a set of principles and relationships between principles? For
example, in alchemy there is a relationship between three principles, which act
as a unity that is also called a trinity (i.e., a unity with three aspects). The rela-
tionship whereby three aspects always act as one and one becomes two, can be
drawn structurally as a triangle. In their book What is Reality Laszlo and
Laszlo (2016) expressed that it appears that what we have come to call “space
and time”seems to originate from a ground of pure geometry; in a deep
dimension that is not in space-time, but in-forms space-time—what they call
“the Akashic Dimension.”This dimension in-forms space-time and thus also
informs structure (p. 22). Let us therefore take the same line of questioning
even further: to what do we attribute structure?
If we attribute structure to relationships between elements, and we attribute
relationships between elements to universal principles, then is there also an
organizing principle that influences how these various principles are connected
within and among themselves? Is this organizing principle that generates
coherence, order, and structure perhaps what we could call intelligence and
consciousness? According to David Bohm, Ervin Laszlo, Fritjof Capra, and
many others it is here that we become aware of the universe as consciousness.
Let us again go one step further. If these higher-level organizing principles are
essentially relational, in the sense that these principles do not exist independ-
ently and separately from our phenomenal world, it then follows that whole-
ness itself is the organizing principle. If we now apply this to our exploration
about causality it opens a much richer view, one whereby wholeness is causal-
ity. In this view, there is not one thing that acts on and causes the effect on
other things. Wholeness self-causes change through the interdependencies and
interconnections of all that is, and operates as a trans-temporal and non-local
holographic field (all that we think of as the Cosmos) that in-forms and gives
11ATTRACTING OUR FUTURE INTO BEING THE SYNTONY QUEST
rise to manifest reality (all that we know as the Universe)—potentially
and actualized.
The notion of the planetization of humanity—in contradistinction to the pol-
itico-economic push toward globalization—may offer a pragmatic framework
for the embodiment of this type of consciousness. The term was originally
coined by Teilhard de Chardin (1959/2002) in his work “The Phenomenon of
Man”to describe the level of integration in human, planetary, and indeed cos-
mic relations wherein “the outcome of the world, the gates of the future …
will only open to an advance of all together, in a direction in which all together
can join and find completion in a spiritual renovation of the earth”(pp.
243–245). Chardin believed that this would occur only when humanity would
reach a level of syntony such that it would be possible to connect “directly,
centre to centre, through internal attraction …through unanimity in a common
spirit”(p. 112).
EMERGENCE FROM SYSTEM WHOLENESS
OM! That (the Invisible-Absolute) is whole; whole is this (the visible
phenomenal); from the Invisible Whole comes forth the visible whole. Though
the visible whole has come out from that Invisible Whole, yet the Whole
remains unaltered. OM! PEACE! PEACE! PEACE! (Paramananda, Isavasya
Upanishad, 1919, p. 25)
This view of wholeness also includes the invisible dimensions of Life and
those dimensions that are not yet expressed through or in any form. By virtue
of space in the room, furniture can be placed. Without space there would be no
objects. Since everything is not a thing but a set of potentialities and relation-
ships, all is always in an ongoing dance of emergence, transformation, trans-
mutation, and dissolution. In a world where all is interdependent and
interconnected, each movement and impulse contributes to (although does not
necessarily cause) another movement and impulse. Nothing exists in isolation,
nothing exists outside the wholeness. All co-arises in an ongoing conversation
of attraction, which in essence is what allows for any relationship to inhere.
If we consider that wholeness is the underlying creative principle for emer-
gence, it then follows that mutuality and reciprocity is the syntony language of
vibrational clusters of coherence within the Web of Life, and not cause and
effect, or input–output relationships. The implicate order (Bohm, 1980) that we
can find within the wholeness comprises a cosmic dance. The implicate order
of this cosmic dance, codes for the structure of living systems within a
dynamic ever-evolving universe. This wholeness view is important to consider
and can avoid a simplistic cause-and-effect view that is common in popular
thought. Basically, when we view reality from the perspective of wholeness
we become aware that all phenomena are a continuum of an unfolding process
of relational dynamics, within a field where emergence unfolds through a
dynamic interchange (Smitsman & Corbetta, 2010). Each of these principles
exists in complementary relationship to one another. The concept of an
12 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.
attractor has been most highly developed in Complexity Theory and
Dynamical Systems Theory, known more popularly as Chaos Theory, and is
most widely used in nonequilibrium thermodynamics to model the stochastic
behavior of complex systems over time. The easiest way to think about an
attractor is just to focus on the obvious: an attractor is something that attracts.
But unlike the magnetic attractors we are all familiar with, this broader cat-
egory of attractors is not limited to metal objects, nor is it limited even just to
electromagnetic force-fields. A whirlpool that forms in the currents of the
ocean is an expression of an attractor, and so is the pattern of movement of
cars in a traffic jam, and even the way in which a powerful idea shapes society.
The point is that attractors are what describe the dynamic behavior of complex
systems, so that one type of attractor describes, for example, the pattern of
behavior of a crowd of people who are just standing around, perhaps listening
to someone or something; another type of attractor describes the behavior of
that crowd as it cycles through states of calm listening, buzzing agitation,
excited shouting, back to calm listening, then perhaps straight back to buzzing
agitation again, and so on; and a third type of attractor describes the behavior
of the crowd turned tumultuous riot. In each case, the type of attractor (from
the static to the periodic to the chaotic) portrays the dynamics of change of the
whole complex system and therefore can be understood as “a pattern of behav-
iour that [the] system moves toward over time”(Goerner, 1994, p. 212).
With affordances we mean to refer to qualities inherent in a situation or in
an object's sensory characteristics that permit specific kinds of uses. For
example, a button, by being slightly raised above an otherwise flat surface,
suggests the idea of pushing it. A lever, by being an appropriate size for grasp-
ing, suggests pulling it. A chair, by its size, its curvature, its balance, and its
position, suggests sitting on it. In analogous ways, anything that serves as an
“invitation”or state attractor for organizing behavioral patterns can be thought
of as an affordance. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can
neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed from one
form to another in accordance with the law of conservation of energy. The
energy potentiality that is mobilized by the attractor and supported by the
affordances in the system, transfers from one state to another. When the system
replies to its activation, the initial energy is transferred and received, which
gives rise to the next activation and impulse. The energy potentials that
become activated by the initial attractors act from within the same energy field
as those that become the embodiment for these activations.
Our sensory organs, including the brain and heart, have the capacity to
transceive between the implicate order and the explicate order of the systems.
In this way the human being as a living system within the larger universal sys-
tems acts as a transducer, manifesting the codes from the “matriz”in forms
that can be embodied and enacted. The term “matriz”relates to the notion of
an embedding or nurturing and potentiating ground state out of which emerges
the self-actualized potential of the systems it nurtures. According to the
Chilean biologist and systems scientist Humberto Maturana, “[…] it makes
13ATTRACTING OUR FUTURE INTO BEING THE SYNTONY QUEST
reference at the same time to the condition of origin of human beings in the
biology of love (matrix ¼uterus [in Spanish]) and to the relational weave
(matriz ¼pattern of relationships) characteristic of the interplay of emotion and
reason”(Maturana & Verden-Z€
oller, 2008, p. 1).
2
Through this syntony dance of attraction and transduction in the nurturing
context of the cosmic matriz, the system brings itself into being and regulates
the actualization of its potentials. Cause-and-effect concepts constrain our
innate sense-ability to remain in tune with the underlying dynamic process of
emergence (Laszlo, 2015, pp. 165–173). The notion of living in a sterile uni-
verse governed by mechanistic laws of cause and effect that determine the pat-
terns of interaction among all physical objects is a billiard-ball model
cosmology: every action is both the cause of other actions and the effect of
previous actions. Where is the space for creativity, for life, for spirit, beauty,
insight, awe, and vitality in this formulation? The fact is that it is not there—it
is not part of the classical models of the cosmos where the evolutionary topgra-
phy is ruled by laws of cause and effect. What if those laws were simply pat-
terns of emergence so closely correlated as to appear inextricably coupled?
And what if they actually were inextricably coupled—in ways quantum physi-
cists would describe as entaglement and macro-sociologists would describe as
intertwinglement?
3
It would then be possible to describe the evolutionary top-
ography in terms of fitness peaks and troughs based on relational attractors.
These attractors govern the dynamics of all processes of emergence and
replace the explanatory construct of cause–effect relationships. They make it
possible to see the universe as a living set of relationships, a conversation
among all its constituent parts, from the smallest to the grandest scale. As bio-
physicist Mae Wan Ho (1998) put it so eloquently, it’s like seeing everything
as an integrated organic orchestra in which all players produce the harmonies
of this cosmic symphony:
To give an idea of the coordination of activities involved, imagine an
immensely huge superorchestra playing with instruments spanning an incredible
spectrum of sizes from a piccolo of 10–9 meter up to a bassoon or bass viol of
a meter or more, and a musical range of 72 octaves. The amazing thing about
this superorchestra is that it never ceases to play out our individual songlines,
with a certain recurring rhythm and beat, but in endless variations that never
repeat exactly. Always, there is something new, something made up as it goes
along. It can change key, change tempo, change tune perfectly, as it feels like
it, or as the situation demands, spontaneously and without hesitation.
Furthermore, each and every player, however small, can enjoy maximum
freedom of expression, improvising from moment to moment, while remaining
in step and in tune with the whole. (p. 55).
With this way of interpreting the interdependence and mutual co-arising of
all processes of emergence in our extraordinary ordinary creative cosmos, we
find ourselves all of a sudden inhabiting a universe that is alive, that is a living
conversation or an improvisational jam session, expressing the underlying
anima mundi of all things. But such a view is only attainable once we eschew
14 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.
the sterility of the mechanistic and reductionist perspectives derived from a
cause–effect framework to explain the nature of relationships among all things.
Based on this dynamic understanding of emergence, actualization, and
embodiment, we can say that the future is the attractor for the present, the pre-
sent the affordance for the future, and we the embodiment of the future in the
present. Accordingly, the process of emergence and becoming is a process
from potentiality into actualisation. In material alchemy, the principle of sulfur
constitutes the dissolution and disintegration of former structures to liberate the
higher potentialities via the principle of mercury through which it is re-united
in stronger bonds, which are made manifest through the principle of salt.
Sulphur, mercury, and salt each exist as potentialities within one another, and
they act together in a trinity relationship.
The next question to explore is, can we as human beings influence the pro-
cess of emergence and manifestation? If, as Jung mentioned, the collective
unconscious and its inherent archetypes (i.e., psychic structures) are always
working through us and are beyond individual human choice, can these arche-
types be changed by humans by attracting into being different potentialities
from the future? Or can we merely become conscious of how these archetypes
work out through us. In the field of Evolutionary Systems Design (see A.
Laszlo, 1999,2001), the premise is that we can change the structure of our
social systems and thus effect different outcomes by doing so. Yet this raises
again another question; namely, whether this change of structure is not in itself
the action of a deeper underlying archetype. The archetypes of Jung as the psy-
chic structures of our collective (un)consciousness cannot be equated to mean
the same thing as the system archetypes such as described by, for example,
Meadows (2011). Returning to Jung, by working with the collective uncon-
scious one is changed by it. If that change results in an increase of awareness,
then one’s ability to consciously work with the potentialities of the layers in
the collective unconscious also increases. This, consequently, can accelerate
and influence how the potentials of the collective unconscious are expressed
from within and through the person.
By exploring the questions above, it also raises the fundamental question of
how reality is perceived. Whether reality consists only of changeable transient
components (i.e., change is the constant factor), or whether reality consists of
both absolute (unchangeable) and relative (changeable) qualities. In the
Buddhist traditions, reality is defined as having absolute and relative qualities
(Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, 2003). The absolute aspects are seen as univer-
sal principles and qualities that are not influenced by temporal dimensions.
The relative aspects are seen as interdependent qualities in the phenomenal
world that are always transient and constantly changing. Depending on how
we perceive that which changes and thus what reality is, it also influences how
we see our role as co-creators with(in) the universe and all the potentials it
contains. This search for causality as a means to control outcomes makes way
for a much deeper and richer understanding of ourselves as the Syntony Dance
through which the universe makes itself manifest. This relational awareness
15ATTRACTING OUR FUTURE INTO BEING THE SYNTONY QUEST
can then also be applied to how we perceive the structural dimensions of our
inner and outer worlds. Going back to the old teachings of alchemy, from an
alchemical perspective structure is not a thing, it is relationship between vari-
ous principles that are a unity (Dubuis, 2007; Steiner, 1923). These principles
always show up as the underlying conditions for the events we observe in our
phenomenal worlds. As such the alchemist Sigismund Bacstrom said: “[…]
one in essence, but three in aspect. In this trinity is hidden the wisdom of the
whole world”, (Bacstrom, 1977).
A PERFECT STORM OR CONTRACTIONS FOR BIRTH?
We started this article by stating that: Our intention for writing this article is
to inspire and remind the reader how to become a state-attractor for the future
potentialities that are currently untapped within our local human dimensions.
The direction of the transformational change that this article is focused on
concerns our collective thrivability. When we consider the growing impacts of
climate change, economic systems that continue to drive our eco-systems to
the point of collapse, growing uncertainty in our economic and financial sys-
tems, political polarization combined with increasing tensions between various
nuclear powers that can quickly lead to widespread escalation, we seem to
have all the ingredients for a perfect storm. Yet, these same symptoms could
also be interpreted as the prelude to our collective birthing and next rite of pas-
sage, in the same way that the expecting mother goes through many practice
contractions prior to the ones that produce the birth and final push.
Collectively, we too are experiences various states of contractions, which can
at times be violent and chaotic. The question of how we can become a state-
attractor for the future potentialities of our collective thrivability and our next
stage of being seems never to have been more pressing than it is now.
In the book chapter “Living the New Paradigm: Syntony and Spark in Life,
Being and Becoming,”Alexander Laszlo describes a state-attractor of superco-
herence. It is precisely this state-of being that is required to transhift the
destructive potentialities of this perfect storm into the dynamics toward con-
tractions that ready us for birth. He describes five coherence domains for
human thrivability, whereby supercoherence emerges when all these five coher-
ence domains become coherently and synergistically aligned in daily practice:
1. The intra-personal dimension of coherence; thrivability
within oneself.
2. The inter-personal dimension of coherence; thrivability with one’s
communities and social systems.
3. The trans-species dimension of coherence; thrivability with the more
than human world.
4. The trans-generational dimension of coherence; thrivability with past
and future generations of all beings.
16 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.
5. The pan-cosmic dimension of coherence; thrivability with the deep
dimension of immanent consciousness in the cosmos. (2018, 69).
As alchemists for thrivability it is precisely this fifth state of supercoherence
where our attention is focused. It is said that quantum entanglement (or inter-
twingularity) and coherence are two fundamental qualities of nature that arise
from the superposition principle of quantum mechanics (Qiao et al., 2017).
The superposition principle from a quantum physics perspective states that par-
ticles are considered to exist across all the possible states at the same time. In
this way it is said that a particle can be in two places at once. It is another way
of seeing the trinity principle at action, what appears at a lower level to be a
duality or even a polarity, is at a higher level united.
4
The superchorence domain, which we call here the fifth state, is the praxis
and portal through which we become the state-attractors for our future poten-
tialities. In this fifth state, past–future–present are within the same domain, and
the earlier four coherence states integrate and syntonize. Most of the time
human beings operate at lower coherence levels or in absence of coherence,
which makes it difficult for people to access the potentialities that this fifth
state affords us. People who are coherent with(in) themselves, their relation-
ships, their environment, and the greater reality of Life are able to effectuate
coherence in others simply through their way of being. This ideal state is rare;
the examples of people who have mastered this are few.
We have set the stage for our next rite of passage, the context and urgency
is clear with growing pressures on our climate, and increasing risks in many of
the most vital domains—food, water, air, and health. These growing risks,
insecurities, and imbalances have also been bringing forth tremendous poten-
tials for innovation, creativity, and collaboration (Wahl, 2016; Wood, 2017).
How we rise to this occasion will determine in many ways whether we become
the attractors for chaos and breakdown feeding the perfect storm scenario, or
syntony and convergence bringing forth our collective birth into new stages of
consciousness. As shared in the beginning of this article, the purpose and
intention of this article is to contribute to our collective birth in this triple
birthing process, whereby we act as midwife, the one giving birth, and are the
baby being born—all three process states, simultaneously. To support this col-
lective birth and to shift potentialities away from the perfect storm scenario
there are a few barriers of systemic transformation process that we like to draw
attention to. The analysis of these barriers results from the Ph.D. research con-
ducted by Anneloes Smitsman since 2014. It is based, among others, on ana-
lysis of several case studies of organizational transformation processes in
Mauritius. Smitsman identified the following barriers through this research
(Smitsman, 2018):
1. Conflicting worldviews—mechanistic divisional worldviews have
become the lens through which many people envision and carry out
their goals.
17ATTRACTING OUR FUTURE INTO BEING THE SYNTONY QUEST
2. Conflicting goals—mechanistic economic goals often drive educa-
tional and political goals. These goals tend to be based on methods
of extraction and competition, designed for exponential growth and
maximization. This produces behavior that prohibits collaboration,
optimization, syntony, regeneration, and integration.
3. Artificial system boundaries—human-made systems do not acknow-
ledge sufficiently our interdependencies and impacts on natural eco-
systems and spheres of interconnectivity.
4. Dominant feedback loops in the system distort reality—indicators for
feedback are often based on narrow fragmented perception of pro-
gress and development. What we measure and report on drives the
worldviews and goals that are at the root of our current crisis.
5. Lack of capabilities for systemic transformation—there is a lack of
competency and vision development for the necessary systemic
transformation processes, at the scale and rate required now.
6. Lack of systemic support systems for transformational change—
without a community of practice that shares the deeper values and
goals underlying transformational change, people often find it hard
to sustain the effort,
7. Becoming more conscious can be painful—when we truly start to
realize what we are doing, why, and whose interests this serves, it
can be very painful. People do not like to feel pain, hence many
avoid going into the belly of our awakening where we come face to
face with our collective shadow.
Transformation of these barriers is no small task and cannot be carried out
by any single person or entity. Being conscious that these barriers exist is a
first step. The coherence levels required to effectively dissolve and/or trans-
form these barriers requires collective learning process between people, which
are still largely missing. Changes in worldview and goals require new experi-
ences of what it means to be human within our current context where our thriv-
ability is very much at risk. Changes in experience also require changes in our
worldviews and goals. As long as the current economic paradigm that is still
largely fossil fuel–dependent does not change, this will continue to drive our
human behaviors in ways that move us further and further away from flourish-
ing and thrivability. The day-to-day experiences that many people around the
world have make the SDGs set forth by the United Nations look like a wonder-
ful ideal, yet often unattainable for the masses. And yet, still we have hope.
More and more people are opening to a paradigm shift, setting new goals
that include deeper levels of syntony with themselves, others, and our planet.
Our human-made systemic boundaries are starting to become more inclusive of
our natural eco-systems, new indicators are being developed that redefine how
we measure success with greater emphasis on happiness and wellbeing.
5
There
is greater emphasis on capacity and competency development for thrivability,
18 ANNELOES SMITSMAN ET AL.
also within the private sector where profitability is no longer solely defined by
the financial bottom line (World Business Council for Sustainable
Development & The Boston Consulting Group, 2017). People are starting to
form the learning eco-systems through which they can cultivate collaboration
and co-creativity (GEF, 2014–2017). And finally, many people realize that
even though awakening can be painful, to live in numbness and from discon-
nection is ultimately far more painful.
The alchemy process of our inner and outer transformation to a more con-
scious species has begun. The deeper transmutation is at work within the heart
of our collective darkness. As by the principles of alchemy, we first move
through a process of revealing and dissolving our impurities. Our blinders that
prohibited us from having a whole worldview fall away (Currivan, 2017;
Guillemant, 2014). Our ignorance gets combusted, making it possible to
receive new visions. The alchemical process is an ongoing process through
which we learn to integrate and embody all the various states of consciousness.
The interconnected ways of seeing from the systems sciences with our focus
on sustainability and thrivability help us better understand and prepare for the
promised quintessence as a result of our alchemical transformation. This quint-
essence, as the alchemical gold of our new ways of being and relating, is being
born from this painful birthing process. With the empathetic sense-abilities of
the doula and mother, we understand that the contractions are still long and
deep. Hopefully, soon the baby is ready to emerge, as a new expression of us.
NOTES
1. Anneloes Smitsman is an external Ph.D. research candidate at the International Centre for
Integrated Assessment and Sustainable Development at Maastricht University. Promoter is
Prof. Pim Martens, co-promoter is Prof. Alexander Laszlo.
2. Translation by A. Laszlo from Systemic Perspectives No. 94/95, retrieved from http://www.
redsistemica.com.ar/articulo94-1.htm. Cf. Maturana and Verden-Z€
oller (2008).
3. “Intertwingled”is the term coined by Theodor Holm Nelson in 1974 that conjoins
“mingled”and “intertwined”to indicate a state of deep and complex connectedness and
interpenetration.
4. We prefer to use Nelson’s term “intertwingularity”compared to “entanglement,”since
entanglement can carry with it the association that there is a form of entrapment, rather
than just interdependence and interrelatedness.
5. The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) developed an
Index that allows comparison of well-being across countries, based on 11 topics the OECD
identified as essential, in the areas of material living conditions and quality of life.
Retrieved from http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/.
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